Just ask Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs.
In a Wireless Week interview earlier this month, Jacobs affirmed that the wireless telecommunications industry is making a fundamental shift into new, media-saturated territory. (You can check out the complete article here.) It’s no secret that as mobile users, we’re demanding more and more broadband (or “broadband-like”) capabilities from our handsets. Jacobs now suspects that as a consequence, operators are going to have to rethink the way they manage their networks.
When asked about products he identifies as potentially leading indicators of big changes in the industry, Jacobs pointed to mobile VoIP–and particularly to the wireless Skype services currently available from European mobile operator 3. 3 released the Skypephone, a Skype-branded mobile handset that offers unlimited Skype-to-Skype calling for free, last November. Jacobs ranks their Skype-enabled mobile products alongside technologies like Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader, Google’s Android platform, and the infamous iPhone from Apple.
As to just how disruptive these new and innovative offerings will prove to be, Qualcomm’s chief exec says the industry will still have to wait and see. But as Jacobs points out, “There are certainly desires by some of the new entrants to make some fundamental changes in the industry.”
I use Skype all the time to talk to my son who is in college. I’d love to have that capability in a mobile phone. I can imagine that having a Skypephone would work great for parents whose students are studying abroad. Sure would cut the costs of overseas charges.